WHAT THE KITE SAW

The first-person account of a child living through military occupation.

Though an author’s note says the story was inspired by Palestinian children, neither text nor illustrations specify where or when it takes place. Instead, it recounts a young child’s experience when soldiers in tanks occupy their town, taking father and brother away, which leaves the child with mother and a younger sibling. (The narrator has pale skin and dark hair, as do other family members.) The illustrations employ a muted palette of somber grays and browns with limited, expressive color indicating at turns danger and hope. The town is under a strict curfew, with the ever looming threat of the occupying force, though the art keeps overt violence off the page. Powerful compositions make the menace clear, such as one that foregrounds uniformed soldiers holding assault rifles with an array of staring children in the background looking tiny by comparison. The titular kite emerges as a symbol of hope and freedom when the child leads friends in making kites to fly above their town. When soldiers shoot them down, the child cuts the string and imagines it sailing away. With that act, the child imagines seeing what the kite sees. An affecting final scene shows the winged child flying above a vision of two figures standing by the sea. They can be read as the lost father and brother or perhaps as their spirits, lending a poignant ambiguity to the story’s end. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 17.5% of actual size.)

In a word, powerful.